Can it! Start Canning and Preserving at Home Today. Jackie Parente

      RED ALERT! FREEZER OR POWER FAILURE

      One major concern with freezing food is the potential for freezer failure because of malfunction, power outage, or simply forgetting to close the door (it happens). This is a distressing thought—especially if your freezer is full, like it should be—but take heart; in most cases, the situation’s not as bad as you think. Just remember a few things: If the door has been left open, as long as the freezer continues to produce cool air, foods should be safe overnight. A full freezer should keep foods safely frozen for about two days, sometimes longer. Half full = half as long. Chest freezers stay cold longer than uprights. The freezer compartment in your refrigerator won’t stay cold as long as a dedicated freezer will.

      You can also take certain precautions to prevent food loss. If you are unsure of how long your freezer will be out, take one or more of the following actions, bearing in mind that you want to keep the door closed as much as possible:

       Add dry ice. A fifty-pound block of dry ice can keep an average full freezer at a safe temperature for three to four days. If the freezer is half full or less, that time will be reduced to two to three days. If you can’t find dry ice, bagged ice is an alternative—although a less-effective one—that may keep foods safe for a day or so.

       If your freezer is not full, group packages together so that they retain the cold better (the same as huddling for warmth).

       Separate meats and poultry from other foods so that, if they do thaw, they don’t contaminate other packages with their dripping juices.

       Ask neighbors if they have some room to spare in their freezers. If they do, pack up your wares in a cooler with ice and transport them.

      Once your freezer is working again, check the freezer temperature and the temperature and condition of the food. According to the USDA, the food will be safe to eat (and can be safely refrozen) as long as it is partly frozen (still has some ice crystals) and is no warmer than 40 degrees Fahrenheit—the average temperature in your refrigerator. Unless your freezer was not working for a long time before you discovered the outage—one of the reasons for checking the temperature on a regular basis—you will probably be able to salvage most, if not all, of its contents. However, you must throw out any food that has been warmer than 40 degrees Fahrenheit for more than two hours or any food that has been touched by raw-meat fluids.

FREEZER CONTAINERS

      Many years ago, when the kids were young and I wanted to try to earn a few extra coins but couldn’t work days (they didn’t have telecommuting back then), I sold products for a well-known plastic-container company. The gig didn’t last long, but I ended up with a ton of sturdy, square freezer containers, which I would never have been able to afford. That was more than three decades ago, and I still have many of them today. The point? It’s worth the investment to get good containers in which to store your frozen foods. While you can freeze in just about anything—plastic bags and wrap, foil, old margarine containers, carry-out containers, even the foam tray that the food was packaged in—the food will not fare as well during storage and will be less appealing when you use it. Here are some of the features you’ll want to look for in your containers:

       Sturdy. Look for something that will last and hold up to repeated washings in your dishwasher without warping. Cheaper plastics will warp and crack.

       Moisture- and vapor-proof. Containers should “lock out air and lock in freshness.” Sounds like a commercial, but it’s true. If your containers aren’t sealed well, you risk loss of moisture, which leads to freezer burn or ice-crystal formation.